


Here We Go Again

by SkyDancerr



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Family Fluff, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Minor Violence, Nightmares, Parenthood, Post-Season/Series 03, Trauma, everyone was happy until they weren't, the gang is back
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-17 00:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20611739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyDancerr/pseuds/SkyDancerr
Summary: 20 years after the Battle of Starcourt, the gang has moved on from their childhood horrors and settled down. But, though the memories still linger, they're chosen to be ignored, because that stuff won't happen again, will it?But, when the past threat of Hawkins comes back from its cave for another battle, everyone is thrown for a loop. And, this time there's the next generation of The Party thrown into the mix. Can the gang survive the battle, or will they be torn apart by their visitor, the Mindflayer?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm super excited about this idea because I love future fics, and I think it will be fun to write about everyone dealing The Mindflayer coming back after so many years. One of my hopes is that, if there's a season 5, it's set in the future and the threats are back after everyone's has settled down. So now I'm writing about it!
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy! Here's to a long journey ahead.

_It's cold. And dark. Eleven slowly opens her eyes and takes in her surroundings._

_Her stomach drops and her blood goes cold when she sees the interior that surrounds her._

_Four white walls. Small bed. Picture on the wall. Small. Lonely._

_"No," El says. "No!" _

_She jumps up from the bed, but when she looks down, her eyes widen in horror._

_Her hands go to the hospital gown covering her body, the familiar rough texture of the gown against her fingers making her shudder. _

_Out of the corner of her tear-filled eyes, she sees a mirror that hadn't been there 22 years ago. She turns, and the sight of her self makes her fall to her knees, a sob escaping her mouth._

_Her hands fly up to her head, her fingers clenching against the stubbly surface, where her chocolate locks used to lay._

_"This can't be real. This can't be real," El repeats. "This can't be real." She stands up. "Someone help me! Please!" she shouts through her sobs that escape from her raw throat._

_Then, through her terror, she remembers the most important thing-no, things-to her, their presence missing like a lost limb, and she just feels utterly lost._

_El runs to the door, tears running down her cheeks faster than before. She grabs the doorknob and twists and yanks, but it doesn't budge._

_"Mike! Mike!" El screams, choking on her words. "Mike! Mike!"_

_The door suddenly opens, and she falls backward and into the bed behind her. She yelps at the bed digging into her back._

_Her pain is forgotten when she looks to the door and sees the one person she never wanted to see again in her life._

Brenner.

_"Hello, Eleven. How nice it is to have you back," Brenner says with that same evil smirk he always had. It sends horrified chills down El's back._

_But, she can't be scared of him, so she stands up, squaring her shoulders and standing firmly in front of him._

_"Where's my family? What did you do to them? Why am I here?" she asks with a hard voice, daring him to reply._

_"Oh, them? Eleven, sweet girl, let me tell you." El shivers at the sinister way he speaks, and she can tell by the look that he did something bad to them. Something horribly bad._

_Even though she hates to cry in front of him, she starts to cry again; quietly. "What did you fucking do to them?"_

_"Such language, Eleven," Brenner says in a low voice, but he's still smirking. He steps closer to her. "Let's start with your daughters, yes?"_

_El grits her teeth, shaking her head. What did this evil man do to her babies?_

_"They're currently in rooms just like this one. They'll be perfect for my new experiments. And I named them 025 and 026."_

_El gasps, pain slicing through her chest. "No! You bastard! You-"_

_"And your husband?" Brenner chuckles. "Well, he's no use to me, so he's no longer on this earth anymore, but serves him right. He was always in the way."_

_El freezes, unbearable pain overtaking her body, her soul, and her mind._

_Mike. Her Mike. Her love. Her soulmate._

No. It couldn't be.

_"And you, Eleven? You're coming with me."_

"No!" 

El shot up in bed, sweat dripping down her forehead and tears running down her cheeks. She's breathing heavily as she frantically looks around the room, her eyes finding the familiar furniture and decor of her bedroom.

She lifts her hands to her head, sobbing when she feels the hair on her head. She puts her hands over her face and sobs into her skin, her body shaking and her heart racing. She feels like she's unable to take in any air.

"El?" a groggy voice says, but she doesn't move. She _can't _move.

Mike had awoken when he heard his wife's sobs through his slumber. He was used to it; El still had many nightmares, at least one a week. 

The things that happened to her in the lab, and the other things after she met the boys, still haunt her. She never really forgets, but more like ignores it.

Mike tosses off the covers and scoots over to El, grabbing her shoulders softly, knowing that too-fast movements would probably scare her. 

"El, hey, El. It's okay. I'm here," he soothed softly, running his thumb over her bare skin. "It's Mike. You're okay. You're in our bedroom, with me."

It's silent for a moment before El finally speaks.

"It felt so real," she sobs. "He took Sarah and Hope. He took them for his fucking experiments, just like he took me, and-" She dropped her hands and met his gaze, and even in the dark, he could see the pure terror in her eyes. "-he killed you. He killed you!"

El launches herself at Mike, and he wraps his arms tightly around her small body, engulfing her in his arms to bring her comfort and make her feel safe again.

He hates how much the nightmares affect her. He hates that they're so realistic that they leave her like this. He wishes she didn't have to live with them.

Mike holds El's head into his shoulder with his hand as his own head rests on her shoulder. "It's not real, El. We're all here. We're all fine."

At his words, she pulls back quickly, eyes wide. He quickly wipes away the stray tears on her damp cheeks.

"I need to make sure Sarah and Hope are okay," she says quickly before she rushes off of their bed and out of the room. Mike quickly follows her, but doesn't stop her. He knows it will just help her believe that it was all a dream.

El opens the door, and there, in each of their respective beds, are their little girls, fast asleep. El sniffles and Mike wraps his arms around her from behind.

"See? They're safe. We're all safe," he says softly into her ear.

El leaves Mike's arms to quietly walk into their room. He watches as she brushes Sarah's black curls from her forehead and plants a soft kiss on her forehead, which makes Sarah smile in her sleep.

El crosses the room and does the same to Hope, brushing away a stray brown curl from Hope's face before giving her, too, a kiss on the forehead.

El stands and walks back to Mike. She closes the door softly, making sure she doesn't wake up their sleeping daughters. She takes his hands and pulls him away from the door, leading him to their bedroom. 

She stops in their doorway. She looks up at him with those hazel eyes he loves so much, and his heart pangs at the fact that they're filled with tears again.

"I just get so scared. Th-that he'll come back and take my babies from me. Take _you _from me." She whimpers. "And Sarah and Hope? They have powers. I gave them my fucking powers and I'm so scared that he'll find out and come for them and-"

Mike rests his hand on her cheek, forcing her to stop talking. "El, that won't happen. And I'm going to _make sure _that doesn't happen. I'll do everything in my power to keep you guys safe." He gives her a soft kiss on her wet lips. "And Brenner was killed by the Demogorgon, remember?"

She hesitated, before nodding.

"I know you'll never stop worrying. And I'll never tell you to stop sharing your worries or your nightmares with me, alright? But we're all fine. He's not here."

El nods again, sniffling. "I know." She looks up at him through her tear-dappled lashes. "I love you," she whispers, but with so much deep emotion that makes his heart soar despite how many years they've been saying it.

"I love you, too." Mike leans in and gives her a soft kiss one more time before he pulls her back into their bedroom, where they lay back in their bed, cuddled up in each other.

But, despite how safe El feels, the memories of the nightmare still lurk.

* * *

"It was so scary, Max. It felt so real," El's hands gripped her mug tighter. Max was sitting across from her at the Wheeler dining table.

Max's eyebrows were scrunched as she took a slow sip of her coffee. "Are you sure this is the worst it's been in awhile?"

El nodded. "Yeah. I haven't had a nightmare that bad in ages." El shudders as the memories of the dream come to the forefront of her mind. "It was just so bad. Usually they're small little flashes, like when I saw Barb dead in the Upside Down, or when Billy was...killed." Max winced. "But this was way, way wose."

"Damn. Do you think it means something?" Max asks. El stills from stirring her tea. She hasn't thought about it like that.

El gulped. "I mean, I'd hope not."

Max reaches across the table-when she sees how El's face has turned pale and her grip on her mug is so tight that it might break-and grabs her hand.

"El, it's probably fine. I mean, we've been fine for 20 years. Would something really happen now?"

El shrugs. "I don't know. I guess not." El takes a sip of her, but she has to force it down her suddenly-thick throat. She looks over to the living room where Sarah and Amber-Lucas and Max's oldest-are drawing at the coffee table. 

Her gaze lands on Hope, who's showing 4-year old Jamenson-Lucas and Max's youngest-her newest Barbie doll.

God, she couldn't imgaine losing her daughters. She couldn't imagine them being snatched away from her and used for their powers, just like she was when she was just a young girl.

In the beginning, the thought of being a mother scared El to no end. And hell, it still did. When she first found out she was pregnant with Sarah, she had shared all those worries with Mike, but he'd reassured her that they'd be fine and that she'd be an amazing mother.

Her and Mike were smitten with Sarah when she came into the world in 1995. She was their littel miracle whom they thought they would never have. But they did, and they cherished her with all they had and watched her grow while giving her love and kisses.

And later, Hope arrived in 1998; another miracle. After Mike and El saw their baby's tiny, sweet face, El had suggested calling her Hope, because Mike had given her hope when he took her in after she escaped.

El got over most of her fears as she got more used to being a mother, and she tried to keep her little girls out of harm's way at all times. But, one thing she couldn't control? Passing down her powers.

_That _was her biggest fear. And when Sarah showed her parents how she could levitate her stuffed animals at age 4? Yeah, El and Mike had been horrified, to say the least.

Then later, at the same age Sarah had, Hope accidentally dropped her glass of orange juice but then caught it without touching it. And the couple knew right away: El had passed down her powers to not one, but _both _of her babies.

El was heartbroken, and the night after they found out, she cried in Mike's arms for an hour, gasping her fears to him as he placed soft kisses on her hair.

But, it was something they all learned to live with. She taught her girls how to use their powers, while also teaching them that they were _never _to use them in public.

And even though nothing has happened yet, El still has that fear that it will.

Tears fill El's eyes. "I just love them _so much _and it would kill me if something happened to them; Mike, Sarah, or Hope. They're my life; my reason to live."

"El, it's okay. They're here, aren't they?" El turned towards Max, brushing her tears away with her finger.

"I know. They are." El hears footsteps and she looks over to see Hope coming up to El's side. Hope reaches up with her small hand and touches El's cheek.

"Mama, why are you crying?" she asks softly, worridly. Pride swelled in El's chest. Hope definetly took after Mike with her caring personality, always so attentive of her parents and sister's feelings.

El reached down and pulled Hope onto her lap. "I'm fine, sweetie. Just...some adult stuff." El leans forward and kisses the tip of Hope's freckled button nose.

Hope giggles. She seems to pause to study El's face for a second, and El marvels over the fact that Hope looks so much like Mike, except for her button nose and brown curls, which she got from El.

Hope must decide nothing is wrong. "Okay. I'm going to go show Jamenson my-Jamenson, no! My Barbie!" Hope launched off El's lap and ran over to where Jamenson was yanking Hope's Baribie's hair.

Max laughed loudly while El rolled her eyes.

"Someone takes after their mother," El comments, looking pointedly at Max as she takes a drink of her tea.

"Damn straight, he does!"

And, as El settles into the conversation with Max, she can't seem to stop thinking about the worries at the back of her mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah and Hope make a discovery right in their backyard and spooky things are starting to happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm back again. I'm still trying to figure out the basics, so we'll see how this goes, but here's a new chapter!

The setting sun was shining through the window of the Wheeler kitchen as Mike puts plastic wrap over the plate of leftover pizza. Maybe it wasn't the best choice for dinner, but when El is gone, he likes to keep it simple.

El had decided to go out to dinner with some women from work, and she'd left Mike and their girls with kisses to their cheeks and promises of saving her desert. That left Mike to provide dinner by himself and to get them into bed.

Mike glances out the window that looks out into the backyard, where Sarah and Hope were swinging on the swings attached to the playset and chattering to each other. Mike smiles to himself as he watches them pump their legs and swing high into the sky, smiles upon their faces and their curls mused from the wind.

Mike slips the pizza into the fridge. He glances at the clock: 6:52. He'd let them play until 7:00 and then he would surprise them with the movie he'd picked up after work. He takes one more glance out the window before he goes over to the couch where his laptop is waiting for him, his half-finished novel on the screen.

But, he left the kitchen at the upmost _wrong_ time...

* * *

"I can go higher than you!" Sarah shouts as she pumps her legs harder, glancing at her little sister as she does so.

Hope giggles. "No, you can't!" It turns into a competition to see who can swing the highest, giggling all the while. Sarah closes her eyes, savoring the warm sun on her freckled face and the cool wind through her hair.

Her calm reverie is broken when she suddenly hears a loud rustle. Her hazel eyes snap open and her legs stop pumping as she looks around the yard as best she can while still swinging through the air.

"Sarhie, what's wrong?" Hope asks in her soft, quiet voice as she too stops pumping her legs, looking at her sister worriedly.

Sarah's feet skid against the dirt beneath her as she comes to a stop. She hears the sound again, and this time she knows where it comes from. Her head whips around the woods behind their yard, and shivers run down her spine as she scans the trees.

"Did you hear that?" Sarah asks Hope, who is now looking where Sarah is, her dark brown eyes squinting.

"No, I-" The sound comes again and cuts Hope off. The two girls freeze as the leaves rustle along with the sound. Sarah stands up.

"Come on, let's see what it is," Sarah says, her fearless personality-inherited from El-coming through as she takes a couple of steps towards the woods.

Hope stands up, too. She walks behind Sarah as they slowly walk towards the woods, curious eyes looking for something, _anything_.

There's another rustle, and they stop in their tracks. Two eyes appear through the leaves. Sarah jumps, her eyes widening. Hope gasps and grabs Sarah's hand, pulling her away from the woods and running towards the house.

Sarah stumbles as her sister yanks her along towards the back door. Sarah glances back at the woods, but the eyes are gone and the rustling has stopped. Fear settles in her stomach as she remembers meeting those bright green eyes.

Hope yanks the door open and runs inside.

"Daddy!" she calls breathlessly. Sarah closes the door behind them, looking around for their father.

Mike was just getting into his writing mode when he heard his frantic daughter's voice from the kitchen. He stands up from the couch, his laptop flopping onto the couch without a care as worry settles over his body.

He stops in his tracks when Hope runs straight to him, grabbing his legs. He reaches down and takes her into his arms, scanning her face for any signs of hurt. Her eyes, identical to his own, are shimmering with fear as she wraps her small arms around his neck.

He looks over to Sarah, who's glancing from him to the door over and over again. "Sarah, what happened?" Mike asks. 

"There was..." Sarah swallows. "Something in the woods."

"A person," Hope pipes up quietly. Mike glances at the door, then back to his oldest. She's wringing her hands as her mind seems to be running a mile a minute.

Mike wants to think the best of this situation. "Maybe it was a neighbor? Maybe Mrs. Oakly was looking for her cat in our woods, again?"

Sarah shakes her head. "No. They had green eyes-"

"-and a white coat," Hope finishes.

This makes Mike freeze. It's as if his heart stops beating as dread tears through him. 

A white coat. The bad men. The lab.

But, could it be?

He can't jump to the worst. Thinking about these things are the kind of things that make him go crazy. He _refuses _to think about that shit coming back.

Mike walks fowards and puts his free hand on Sarah's shoulder, kneeling on the floor and pulling her gently to his side. "It was probably just your imaginations." He shurgs. "I mean, I just read you guys a story about mad scientists in lab coats last night."

Sarah looks apprehensive, but Hope's arms loosen slightly. Sarah stares at him for a long moment, her large, hazel doe-eyes that remind him so much of her mother piercing into his. She takes one last glance at the door before looking back at him.

Sarah looks down at her sister for a second, who has calmed down a bit in Mike's arms but still looks a little scared. Sarah nods slowly. "Yeah, okay. It probably was."

Mike smiles softly at her before pulling her into a hug and giving her a kiss on the head. Mike stands up and takes Sarah's hand while keeping his grip firm on Hope's tiny body.

"I picked up a movie after work for us to watch. How 'bout we go do that?" A smile makes its way onto Sarah's face. 

She blinks up at him. "Popcorn, too?"

Mike sighs in mock exasperation. "I guess we could have popcorn, too." Sarah shouts a "yes!" while Hope squeals. Mike lets Hope down and tells them to go put the movie in while he starts the popcorn.

But, as he plops the bag of kernels into the microwave, he can't shake away the feeling that something is starting to loom over them.

Something bad.

* * *

Mike is snuggled in bed and closing his laptop when Eleven comes out of the bathroom, dressed in one of his old t-shirts and some small shorts. She heaves a sigh as she pulls back the covers and slips inside.

Mike rolls over and pulls El's sluggish body into his, wrapping his arms around her as she nuzzles her face into his chest. He places a small kiss on her head. "How was dinner?"

El shrugs. "It was ok. Sharon kept talking about her son's baseball games and Jacey wouldn't stop flirting with our waiter." Mike can just feel her rolling her eyes. "But overall, it was good. And I brought back my leftover cheesecake because the girls would have a fit if I didn't."

Mike chuckles. "They'll be very happy to find that in the fridge tomorrow." El laughs, but it's sleepy and quiet. Mike debates with himself in his mind if telling her about what Sarah and Hope thought they had seen earlier. Is she too tired? Will it just make her worry too much; give her nightmares?

But, the reality is, Mike Wheeler can't keep shit from his wife.

His arms tighten around her. "El, I need to tell you something." She stiffens in his arms at the frightened edge to his voice. 

"What is it?" she asks, worry in her voice.

Mike gulps. "Sarah and Hope were in the backyard on the swings, so I decided to work on my book before calling them in so we could watch a movie." El's arms tighten around him slightly.

"Did one of them get hurt?" she asks urgently, lifting her head to look at him with wide, worried eyes.

Mike shakes his head. "No! No, they're fine." El breaths a sigh of relief at the prospect that neither of her babies are hurt and settles back into his arms, placing her head under his chin. Mike closes his eyes and savors the feeling of her in his arms.

"What happened, then?" she asks when he's quiet for a moment, wanting him to continue.

"Uh, sorry," he says quickly, opening his eyes to get back on track. "I was just getting started when...they came running inside, calling for me." Mike sighs. El runs her fingers gently through his hair. "And I obviously thought the worst, so I ran in there, and...they looked so scared, El. So scared."

El's movements still as she takes in his pained tone of voice. "What'd they say? Did Mrs. Oakly blame them for her cat going missing, again?"

"No, El." He pulls away so he can look into her eyes, his hands on her shoulders. Her eyes widen. "They said they saw someone in the woods...in a white lab coat.

El pales visibly in the low light of their bedroom. Her hazel eyes are now filled with panic. "Are you sure?" she asks in a quiet voice; a scared voice.

"I mean, I wasn't there, but they were so freaked out by it, it makes me wonder if they actually did see something."

"What did you say to them."

"I convinced them it was their imagination and threw the promise of a movie and popcorn in. It sold them."

El looks down at the bedsheets. He can tell she's trying to say strong, to not jump to the worst. Neither of them want that shit to happen again. They moved out of the fucking town after high school to get away from it all, after all. And the thought that it might have chased them here? To Opaline? It's something Mike would rather not have to think about.

He pushes away his thoughts when El looks up at him with tear-filled eyes. "I'm scared, Mike." Mike grabs her trembling hands.

"El, it can't be true. This stuff hasn't happened in years. And in Opaline? That shit only happens in Hawkins, not here," Mike tries to reason.

El opens her mouth to say something. "I-"

There's suddenly a sound from their doorway, and they both sit up to loom towards the door. Sarah is standing there, in her pajamas, her hand on the gold doorknob. "Mama? Daddy?"

El quickly wipes away her tears. Mike's hands tighten around hers. "What is it, sweetie?"

Sarah walks over to their bed and jumps onto the mattress. "Sarah, it's midnight, what are you doing up?" Mike asks. Sarah crawls towards them, and that's when he sees the unease in her eyes.

"Daddy, I wasn't fully honest earlier," she admits.

Mike furrows his brows. "What do you mean?"

"When I agreed that what we saw was just our imagination? I...only said that to not scare Hope, but I just..." Sarah looks so distraught, it makes Mike's heart clench. She's too young to have such fear. 

El lets go of Mike's hand to reach over and take Sarah's. "You can tell us," El urges, looking at her daughter with a soft look, one that with one glance made Sarah seem to calm down a little, the tension in her shoulders lessening just a smidge.

"What we saw out there? I think it was real." Sarah licks her lips. "It was like, a feeling. It made me want to run, but also to use my powers and fight it, and I never get that feeling unless I'm in danger." She swallows. "It just-it wasn't our imagination."

Mike and El look at each other, their eyes wide in matching terror.

"It was real," Sarah whispers.

Then, suddenly, all the lights in the bedroom go out.

All across the town, the lights start to flicker out, leading all the way back to Hawkins, Indiana.

And there's just dark.

* * *

A couple of towns over, one Will Byers is sitting on the couch, eating out of a bag of potato chips while his other hand is wrapped firmly around his boyfriend, Evan's, hand. The TV is playing re-runs of FRIENDS, and Will can't help but feel so content.

No monsters, no school, no bullies. Just Will and his TV show and chips and Evan. That's all he needs in life to feel utterly content.

And, just as the intro to FRIENDS is starting, the lights all around the house start to flicker before they go out, along with the TV and the music cuts out sharply. 

"Hm, that's weird," Evan says. "It's not raining or anything, but the whole town looks like its out."

But Will isn't paying attention, because he's distracted by the horrific feeling of goosebumps skittering across his skin, a sensation he hasn't felt since 1985 and was hoping he'd never have to feel again.

Will feels the pressure of Evan sitting next to him. "Will, you ok?" Evan asks, but Will doesn't hear him.

And, in a quiet, shaking voice, Will Byers whispers, "He's back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, things are definitely starting to happen. To explain, Opaline is a town I made up that's just a few towns over from Hawkins, so far enough away that they're, well, away, but close enough to family. 
> 
> Hope you guys like where this is going! Thanks for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo, how is it so far? I think I'll try to write this as much as possible because I have so many ideas and actually have a plan for this story.
> 
> I "Hope" you enjoyed reading (tee-hee, see what I did there?). Until next time!


End file.
